NASA's Orion spacecraft on the move toward maiden flight

NASA's new Orion spacecraft will be transferred from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility during the second week of September. The exact date will be announced as soon as possible, NASA said in a press release Friday.

In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility, the Orion spacecraft will be fueled with ammonia and hyper-propellants for its mission. It will later be moved again for the installation of its launch abort system.

Orion is undergoing preparations for its maiden flight in December, an unmanned flight that will take it 3,600 miles above Earth on a 4.5-hour mission to test the systems critical for future human missions to deep space. After two orbits, Orion will reenter Earth's atmosphere at almost 20,000 miles per hour before its parachute system deploys to slow the spacecraft for a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

The Orion spacecraft will carry astronauts farther into the solar system than ever before.